earticle

영어

This study discusses the English intervocalic /l/ spoken by Korean speakers phonetically and phonologically. This phonetic investigation is conducted to compare the acoustic features of the English intervocalic /l/ by English and Korean speakers. The results are summarized as follows. First, English speakers produced the English intervocalic /l/ as a single [l] whether English spelling is l or ll, whereas Korean speakers pronounced the English intervocalic /l/ as a geminate, or a double [ll]. Second, the formant values of the English intervocalic /l/ by English speakers had a similar tendency to those by Korean speakers. However, Korean speakers pronounced the English intervocalic /l/ before the vowel [ɪ,i] as palatal [ʎ]. This phonetic phenomenon is analyzed phonologically in accordance with Kim (1997)’s suggestion and Clements and Hume (1995)’s feature spreading. Hearing the intervocalic clear /l/ by English speakers, Korean speakers parse the clear /l/ into the available position, coda, inserting an empty C in subsequent syllable-onset. And then, the features of preceding /l/ in coda spread to the empty C slot, implementing a double [ll]. Still, if vowel [ɪ,i] follows the /l/ in the syllable onset, the /l/ is supplied with [-anterior] of the coronal node of vowel [i] and changed into another variant, palatal [ʎʎ].